CRASHING HEAVEN
Al Robertson
GOLLANCZ
LONDON
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Acknowledgements
Copyright
For Heather and Rory
Chapter 1
[Look out of the window, Fist,] said Jack, speaking inside his mind so only the little puppet could hear him. [Snowflakes.]
As their shuttle wheeled around, the sun snatched at the snowflakes’ great ice bodies and made them blaze, leaving even Hugo Fist with nothing to say. There were a dozen of them hanging in the cold, empty space before Station. The smaller ones sparkled with reflected light. Maybe five hundred metres across, they revolved in the void, bodies shimmering gently. The larger ones were majestic crystal shapes, dense with fractal complexity. They glowed partly with the sun’s fire, partly with their own inborn light. The abandoned Earth roiled behind them, its toxic cloudscapes an insult to their cold perfection.
[A Totality battle formation – here?] whispered Fist. [ We really did lose the war, Jackie boy!]
[According to East they arrived a month ago. Supporting their peace negotiators.]
[ You been onweave? Checking the newsfeeds? I thought you’d given up on that.]
[ I wanted to see what we were coming back to.]
[ I’m sure. You’ve been mailing Andrea again, haven’t you? Harry’s dead, she’s single, you’ve come all the way back from a Totality prison, and she still won’t reply?]
Jack said nothing. Andrea’s mails had sustained him through the last two years of prisoner-of-war life and helped him come to terms with his imminent death. He thought she’d be overjoyed to hear that he was returning home to Station. But she didn’t reply to the message he sent announcing his return, or any that followed it. He turned back to look out of the window.
The shuttle was nearing the snowflakes. They drifted in the darkness like so many frozen stars, policed by clusters of monitor drones. Station – Kingdom’s greatest achievement – hung behind them. Jack had spent seven years remembering his home. It was nine kilometres long and, at its widest, two and a half kilometres across. Every single centimetre suddenly seemed so ugly. The twin cylinders of Homelands and Docklands were corroded metal dustbins sprouting from opposite sides of the Wart, the hollowed-out asteroid wedged between them like a dirty secret.
Only the cargo jetties of Docklands held anything like beauty. They shimmered above the near tube’s round, open mouth in sparkling lines, reaching out from the Spine to score order on the void. The Spine was speckled with spinelights, their blazing light creating one more day on Station. It disappeared into Docklands, running all the way down Station’s central axis to the distant tip of Homelands. And of course, there was Heaven – a blue-green ring wrapped around the end of Homelands. Its perfect light was too cold to move Jack. He’d left any allegiance to the Pantheon gods far behind five years ago, when he refused to fight any more battles for them.
The shuttle altered course slightly and Docklands came into view, a curved clutter of factories, offices, housing estates and entertainment zones. It was as if some giant, half-broken machine had bled buildings on to the arched inner wall of a hollow cylinder, until something broadly like a city had clotted into being. It was too far away to make out much detail. Memory filled the gaps. Jack remembered the Docklands streets he’d grown up in, and then left so comprehensively behind. ‘The inside of the dustbin,’ he thought, then smiled sadly as he imagined Andrea scolding his cynicism. She’d helped him find their beauty again, in those few hidden months they’d had together. Then the rock hit the moon and everything changed. She’d brought so much into his life more recently, too. He winced at the thought of her absence. He’d missed her so much over the last few weeks.
Fist caught the movement but, with no access to Jack’s deep emotions, misunderstood it. [ We don’t need to worry about snowflakes any more. The Totality like us now.]
Jack sighed. [ They shouldn’t,] he replied. [ You and I destroyed enough of them.]
[ Before your little change of heart.]
The shuttle moved past one of the larger snowflakes. A cold shining arm loomed towards the window. Silver lights flickered within hard crystal ice, each shimmer a thought pulsing in one of a thousand virtual minds.
[ Just think, Jack. I could have killed one of those. If you’d let me.]
‘No,’ said Jack, out loud. One of his guards heard and briefly stared at him, then at the empty seat next to him. Jack didn’t notice. He was looking out at Docklands again, tracing yesterday across its streets.
The shuttle docked at one of Station’s jetties. The guards escorted Jack down to a cell in Customs House. He hung his coat on the back of the door and nestled his little Totality-issued suitcase down beside the cell’s single chair. His new suit itched. Hours passed. There was water, but no food. Fist, bored, was sleeping. Little snores echoed in Jack’s mind. Memories of Andrea darted between them, trailing grief and loss. Familiar thoughts followed. Her silence was impossible to understand. Perhaps something had happened to her. Maybe she needed his help. He had to find her. After a while, more immediate needs distracted him. He banged on the door and shouted for something to eat. There was no response. He tried to sleep, and in a confused half-dream found himself falling through darkness towards nothing.
At last a new guard startled him awake. He walked Jack down a windowless corridor to a small, brightly lit room. There was a desk with two plastic chairs in one corner of the room. A balding, portly customs official sat behind it. He asked Jack to sit down.
[Don’t show off,] Jack told Fist as he stretched and yawned. [ I don’t want him realising you’ve hacked your cage.]
The official had a strong Docklands accent. He was brisk and ostensibly courteous. He confirmed Jack’s identity, then asked which Pantheon god had been his patron. ‘No wonder you’re so fucked,’ he said when Jack replied ‘Grey’. Then, a return to formality and a barrage of questions.
‘When did Grey certify you as an accountant?’
‘On the day of my twenty-first birthday.’
‘When were you seconded to InSec?’
‘Three years later.’
‘What was your role?’
‘I was assigned to work under Inspector Harry Devlin as a forensic auditor. Investigating links between the Panther Czar nightclub and Bjorn Penderville’s murder.’
The official snorted.
‘Why didn’t they use an InSec specialist?’
‘It was Grey’s will. I didn’t question it.’
[ That’s not what you told me,] said Fist.
[Quiet.]
‘When were you reassigned to outer-system duties?’
‘After the attack on the moon. It was decided that the Penderville case was low priority. I understand it was never resolved.’
[ Not going to share your conspiracy theories, Jackie boy?]
[ No. Now shut up.]
‘What was your specific Soft War posting?’
‘Aggressive ongoing counter-mind actions.’